I had to go on a very quick trip to Chicago this weekend for work—gone Friday, back Saturday night—and walking around my old haunts made me remember how much I love the Windy City. New York may have all the glitz and glamour of a big town, (along with some serious culinary greats), but Chicago is a beautiful place that stands out on its on. I was in town to interview the fabulously interesting Martin Kastner, the creative genius behind Crucial Detail and many of the artful, thought-provoking service ware, design elements, and boundary-pushing elements of Alinea and Next. It may have been in-and-out trip, but it was so cool to see Krastner’s studio and work in action.

Inside Crucial Detail with Martin Kastner

Although I barely had a chance to unpack my bags before I was heading back to the airport, I did get to run along the lakefront (one of my favorite areas in Chicago), catch dinner and drinks at Balsan in the newly minted Waldorf Astoria, and hang out with the fun, and very proud, crew of Balena for staff meal. It’s always great to be back in Chicago, even if it’s only a short but sweet trip, and it was particularly nice this time around. Be on the look out for my Martin Krastner profile and Balena staff meal feature in the coming weeks on StarChefs.com.

Under the train tracks at Milwaukee and Western, Belly Shack mashes up two cuisines in a bout of creative, culinary charm. Urbanbelly’s Bill Kim and Yvonne Cadiz-Kim mix their Korean and Puerto Rican heritages at this bare bones, industrial feeling BYO.

Soft Puerto Rican bread is filled with earthy lemongrass meatballs and topped with rice noodles and spicy sauce, or fill your own with the Korean kogi, sweet barbecued meat and tangy kimchi. Crispy fries in tograshi spice pair with a rich curry mayo. End with sweets – soft serve topped with crumbled bacon bits and chocolate chip cookies or drizzled with dark caramel sauce and Vietnamese cinnamon.

Although you can’t help but feel that the place is a rip on David Chang, this is Chicago, miles from New York City, and the kimichi sandwiches and played up soft serve go down nicely.

Unfortunately, the food is a bit overzealous in the seasoning, probably much better at 2 a.m. after a long night of drinking. The tograshi fries are swimming in spice, the curry mayo is overpowering. And the subtle flavoring of the Asian meatball sandwich is lost in overwhelming, spicy sauce.

And one last thought, at a place called Belly Shack, where is the pork belly?

With a wonderfully long beer menu, a menu that highlights sustainable and local products, and a waitstaff so pleasant it’s hard not to think they’re all on some sort of hallucinagans, the Publican is full of charm to the inth degree.

The food is effortless; well-seasoned, straightforward, and unassuming. This is a gastropub with a simplistic menu done well. With an ever changing menu based on the seasons, the chefs have a real connection to their food. Helmed by Executive Chef Paul Kahan and Chef de Cuisine Brian Huston, the menu focuses on the essential ingredients of a dish. Described by Kahan and Huston, the cuisine is “pristine product, simply prepared.”

Charred shortribs served with earthy sweet potatoes and tangy candied kumquats are topped with a perfectly cooked fried egg. Warm beer bread is topped with house made ricotta cheese, soft and creamy. Served alongside musky salted pistachios and soft, sweet persimmons, the entire thing is drizzled with honey.

The sweetness of fried french toast is cut with tart raspberry jam. The bread is an err too wet, crunchy on the outside, but gooey on the inside. Peppery apple sausage adds an earthy, savory flavor to the dish. A large casserole arrives steaming with weiswurst, a mild pork and veal sausage served with sweet Bavarian mustard, alongside a chewy, soft Hannah’s bretzel.

It’s hard to pass up an offering from the Publican’s extensive beer menu, but for brunch a mimosa or bloody mary is more in line. Publican style means with a brew, and the mimosa is served with a weiss beer, while the bloody mary, a concoction of house-made mix and celery bitters is blended with a choice: Tito’s Vodka, or possibly a stout, IPA, or another beer.

As for the design, the space and service is thoughtful down to the tee. From the complimentary coat check, to the three-tiered bar tables with a small top “drinks” level, it’s clear this is a thought out endeavor.

The space is inviting and warm. The sunny, yellow room holds long, communal tables and bright, round lamps hang from the ceiling. The cubby shelves, placed under each chair for extra storage space for guests, which the waiters thoughtfully point out, would almost seem over the top, if they were not so helpful.

After brunch is a time for refection and conversation at the Publican, and no time to hurry along on your way. Sundays are packed; the communal tables are crammed full of people by 11am, and the attentive service you receive early on may dwindle later in your meal. Sip on coffee or a cocktail, enjoy the last bites of short rib or weiswurst, catch up with friends. That’s what brunch is all about anyway, and in this setting, you won’t really want to leave.

Katherine Sacks

After the massive earthquake hit Haiti in early January, the world reacted. Aid poured into the struggling country  from every corner, as relief workers fought to rescue survivors and distribute supplies to the thousands now in need. From large scale text-message donation services to the highly-successful Hope for Haiti Now telethon, huge efforts have been made to raise money. Restaurants have held benefit dinners, stores have started to collect donations, and performers have released benefit songs.

Chicagoans are among the many contributing to the aid effort. While not all of the fundraisers are on the national level, each endeavor can be an effective way to raise money for the Caribbean country, as a group of local Yelpers proved this past Saturday, January 25th. They took a small idea, a bake sale, and turned it into a big way to raise money for Haiti.

As event coordinator Tina Bennett said, “It was a very organic process. I’m a parent, and so the idea of a bake sale to raise money seemed like a very natural one. I know how to bake, I know how to have a bake sale. So it seemed easy and I just figured why don’t I just ask a bunch of businesses that were my favorite businesses to help and basically everybody just said yes and it all came together very quickly and easily, kind of amazingly.”

Bennett, with the the help of volunteer organizer Cassie David, was able to enlist over 30 volunteers and garner donations from seven Chicago area bakeries for the Yelp sponsored event, including Angel Food Bakery, Luscious Layers Bakery and Bleeding Heart Bakery. Hyde Park restaurant Medici on 57th donated its upstairs space, where the sale took place.Plates of cookies, cupcakes and brownies lined long tables, as volunteers clad in Yelp’s signature red shirts sliced into rich chocolate cakes and bagged cookies. One volunteer even sold doggie treats. Attendees were asked to purchase tickets, which they then traded with the volunteers for baked goods.

“It was all over twitter and people were really excited about it,” said attendee, Lincoln Square resident Page Worthy. “With Yelpers, usually it’s just all about drinking and getting free stuff, but when it really matters they’ll come out and support a cause.”

Click above to view a slide show of the Baking for Haiti event

Contributors and volunteers came from all areas of Chicago for many reasons. Some were enticed by the big name bakeries, others wanted to make a donation or help aid efforts for Haiti. By mid afternoon, many of the tables and platters were bare.  After several hours and pounds of sugar, flour and butter, Baking for Haiti raised over $1500. These proceeds will go directly to both Doctors without Borders and Oxfam.

“It’s pretty amazing  how this has come together,” David said. “I think that this has been really great because it shows that you just have to have this little idea and get a community of people behind you and you can do it.”